It is a common phenomenon these days, and I suppose it is understandable, maybe even inevitable, but have you noticed how often digital ‘content’ is liberally laced with errors - grammatical or typographical?
When I read news articles online, even on the BBC website, I am disappointed to see that many of them have not been given a second reading before release into the ether. Even though I think this is poor, I have to continually remind myself (although it is a feeble excuse) of the immediacy of digital content and its (often) very short life span.
Every day millions of online words are churned out on every subject under the sun. Unlike a piece of writing that is to be printed, writing digital content is a very cheap, fast process and can reach a huge readership, instantly. Often, it seems, the (invariably sensational) title of the piece and the immediacy are what is most important to the writer, with the grammatical quality of the written content being of little concern.
But it is the huge readership aspect that worries me. For many, online reading is the only reading they do and so many readers being influenced by so much sloppy writing can only have one result – a steady degradation of writing skills and even worse, the general acceptance of that.
When I read news articles online, even on the BBC website, I am disappointed to see that many of them have not been given a second reading before release into the ether. Even though I think this is poor, I have to continually remind myself (although it is a feeble excuse) of the immediacy of digital content and its (often) very short life span.
Every day millions of online words are churned out on every subject under the sun. Unlike a piece of writing that is to be printed, writing digital content is a very cheap, fast process and can reach a huge readership, instantly. Often, it seems, the (invariably sensational) title of the piece and the immediacy are what is most important to the writer, with the grammatical quality of the written content being of little concern.
But it is the huge readership aspect that worries me. For many, online reading is the only reading they do and so many readers being influenced by so much sloppy writing can only have one result – a steady degradation of writing skills and even worse, the general acceptance of that.
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